Bennie’s hat trick leads to quarterfinal playoff win

Dan Wisniewski races a Shrewsbury contender for the puck during a March 5 playoff battle in which Wachusett came away with the victory. Joyce Roberts photo Junior forward Jeremy Bennie chose the most opportune time possible for his high school career breakout game; that being the Central Mass. Division 3 quarterfinal matchup with rival Shrewsbury. Bennie delivered three consecutive goals in the first two periods of play, leading the Mountaineers to a 5-2 victory at Westboro’s North Star Youth Forum on March 5. The win advanced third-seeded Wachusett into a semifinal contest against second-seeded Marlboro on March 9.

The Forum could have been re-named Thunder Dome on this night with a hugely raucous Mountaineer support section tearing down the house in support of its team. The partisan crowd did not have long to wait as Wachusett grabbed the opening lead when Bennie corralled a rebound from senior co-captain Steve Iacaboni at the 2:59 mark and drilled home the opening goal.

“Steve (Iacaboni) took a shot and it sort of dribbled in a little bit and I just sort of poked it through and then went around the goalie and smashed it into the back of the net,” said Bennie of his first of three tallies on the night.

Goal number two came at the 6:29 mark when Dylan Lamica wheeled and fired point-blank from the right circle. Bennie, near the crease, was able to re-direct the shot home to put his team up by a pair.

Shrewsbury cut the lead to 2-1 but with 29 seconds left in the second period, Bennie completed his hat trick when Dan Wisniewski found him alone in front of the net and slid an easy feed out front. Bennie was able to find an opening and flipped home the score, giving the Mountaineers a two goal edge heading into the final period.

“He gets a point here a point there but he’s always on the score sheet,” said head coach Matt Lane of Bennie’s team contributions. “But tonight he came up in a really big way. I’m very happy for him. He’s a great kid. He really deserves it.”

Senior forward Matt Bernard added a pair of insurance goals in the final 15 minutes of play to put this one away for keeps. Steve Trychon assisted on his first goal a minute into the period and Doug McKenna was credited with help on the second, a power play goal with 2:57 remaining.

The win was vindication of sorts for Wachusett as Shrewsbury ended the Mountaineer playoff hopes abruptly with opening round defeats each of the last two years. Despite a pair of 4-1 wins against the Colonials during the regular season, no one was taking this opponent lightly.

“It just feels amazing because they took it away from us two years in a row and just to be able to knock them out this year, it just felt amazing,” said Iacaboni, whose assist on the night left him one point shy of the elusive century mark in career high school points. “Playing them before was an advantage but we tried not to think about it. Any given day, any team can win. We didn’t want to go in cocky. We wanted to go in 100 percent.

“I was trying not to come into the game focused on the hundred points. I got that first assist. My spirits went up. I think it just brought the overall morale of the team up because we wanted to get that first goal real quick and set the pace,” Iacoboni added. “It just felt good. Jeremy was there to put it home.”

Netminder Christian Helger, who entered the game with an impressive 1.58 goals against average and save percentage of .922, was nearly flawless again, turning back 21 shots on the night.

“Everybody’s nervous,” said Lane post-game. “The kids got on the board early and really took the edge off. We never trailed. We talked in practice that we beat them twice in the regular season but they beat us the last two years in the playoffs, so we tried to focus on that and keep the kids hungry. It’s tough to beat any team three times a year, especially a team like that that’s well coached and as good as Shrewsbury is, so I’m really glad the kids went out and played so well.”